


C for Chemistry

by NerosLyre



Category: Sherlock (TV), V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Pre and Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerosLyre/pseuds/NerosLyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is that why you're calling yourself Greg?!" It's not that Sherlock didn't know his name. He just thought his name was Dominic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	C for Chemistry

“Is that why you’re calling yourself Greg?!” Sherlock said, indignant, and Lestrade feels his stomach turn to water.  
“That’s his name.”  
“Is it?” Sherlock says, and allows himself to be distracted by John’s lead.  
Thank god for Sherlock’s complete lack of social skills, which means John doesn’t bat an eye when Sherlock doesn’t know the name of the man he’d known best before John showed up. John will just assume it was Sherlock’s thoughtlessness. He won’t assume there’s another name. A name that hasn’t used in decades. The name he killed, thrown into the fire while he watched Parliment burn. 

Greg watched the plume light the night sky on fire and even though it makes his eyes burn he can’t look away. 

He’s glad when it turns out to be a rogue scientist. In the end he never has to set foot into the Baskerville building. He doesn’t want to know. Knowing is for the Sherlocks of the world. It makes him a crap detective but no one seems to have caught him out yet.  
Greg drives home on his own, Sherlock’s car in his rear-view. He rounds a corner, fiddles with the radio when the London stations are clear again and when he checks the mirror Sherlock’s car is gone. It doesn’t give Greg much pause. It’s likely a rental, he’s probably just returned it. He doesn’t want to think about whatever side journeys Sherlock will drag John on while they’re in the country but Greg will be sure to check the 221B flat for new animal skulls the next time he is over. 

Greg’s relieved to see that there’s just the one skull on the wall but he doesn’t have time to dwell on the feeling since his nose and ears are currently being assaulted. His nose by some foul stench and his ears by the litany of curses the odor inspired in Sherlock. Apparently an experiment gone awry. Greg is glad this sickly sweet smell, like sweat and a sweet cocktail, isn’t a sign of success. He wonders when grim relief is the happiest he’s been in a long time.  
He sees the roses in the flower boxes in the windows as he leaves. He’s already halfway down the street and that’s the reason he doesn’t mention it, not the shiver of memory. Next time he’ll be sure to congratulate Mrs. Hudson; they’re a particularly vibrant shade of red.  
He forgets. He was never one for flowers anyway, as his wife (Ex. Ex wife) was always happy to remind him. He doesn’t notice their lack the next time he pops by. 

Sherlock insists on being there when they take down Ricoletti. With all his usual diplomacy intact he announces in front of the entire force that it’s essential he be there to catch any and all evidence so they make a clean arrest so the charges stick this time. That lack of diplomacy might be why when one of Rico’s thugs went tearing down the hall in Sherlock’s direction no one thought it was a priority. The thug’s priority was making a clean getaway but that was being impeded by a very tall, very lanky man in front of him. Greg saw it happen in slow motion. The thug shoved Sherlock. Sherlock shoved back. The thug practically bounced off him, slammed against a wall, and was dazed long enough for Sherlock to pin him. John got the thug’s wrists bound and carted him out of the building.  
Greg caught up with Sherlock after, just barely before he snuck away to avoid dull procedures.  
“He was twice your weight. At least.”  
“Weight is not always an advantage.”  
“He was made out of solid muscle.”  
“As am I.”  
“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” Greg says, only realizing it as it comes out of his mouth. Lately he’s seen Sherlock get into boxing matches, duels, and long chases that would have winded anyone else.  
Sherlock’s eyes narrow but his mouth curves up into a smile. Greg has seen this too. Sherlock has a quid pro quo system of deductions. With the coppers, he’s reluctant to do their work for them. Unless they notice something clever, then he’s happy to fill in the blanks.  
“Strength isn’t only in muscles. Muscles tire. It’s chemicals. Endorphins and adrenaline. What if there were a way to boost them whenever you wanted?”  
“Like a steroid?”  
“Something that doesn’t shrink your balls. Isn’t that something you would want to give your brave men and women?”  
“We don’t chemically alter our employees.”  
“Good thing I’m not on the payroll.”  
“Sherlock….” But he had already walked away.  
Greg told John to keep an eye out for any needles. John texted two days later that he had scanned the flat and found nothing. Sherlock had been dead to the world the whole time, he’d looked everywhere.  
Greg chalked it up to a flight of fancy. One of many, he soon forgot. 

John had gotten drunk one time at the pub and told Greg all about the first time he met Mycroft. Greg was willing to assume some drunken exaggeration until the same thing happened to him. The trip to Baskerville got him on the man’s radar. He was driven to some snooty club and led to an office drenched in mahogany. Mycroft has a way of asking seemingly innocent questions that are anything but. Greg knows his privacy is being invaded and he doesn’t know how and that drives him mad.  
“Turning the CCTV away just to have a chat. I thought that kind of abuse of power was expelled years ago,” he says and he thought it was vague enough. What John neglected to mention is that Sherlock is not exactly one of a kind.  
“I’m sure you like to hope so,” Mycroft says, his mouth turning up into a wicked smile, his eyes dark and still expressive. They dance with mischief. “The honorable Yarder. Greg Lestrade, with the spotless record.”  
The way he says his name, Greg knows Mycroft knows. Knows Mycroft knows he knows. He wonders if Mycroft told Sherlock or if it was the other way around. Or maybe they found out on their own, that is always possible.  
He should have gotten out completely. Out of the force, out of the country. Why is this coming down on him? He was hardly the only one in the square that night. And they WON. Except not much really changed. The corrupt were run out of office, true, but new positions were created. New names, same jobs. And Greg is as guilty as the rest. A non-threatening name to hide what he really was.  
There’s a drawer in his house, a drawer he never opens. Most of the time he doesn’t think about what is inside but when he does he can hear his breath, he can feel the condensation blow back on his face. He can feel the heat and remember that night.  
He doesn’t lock the drawer. He expects there are some still left in London who also remember.

Greg is shocked when Sally and Anderson list all the ways Sherlock is a fraud. He gets that they don’t like him, honestly he does, but he can’t believe they think he’s a fraud. They forget that there are mad people in the world, there are geniuses. That great acts can be caused by a single man. It’s like their brains can’t retain the memory or they would go mad. They were young when the London sky was set on fire but still. How could anyone forget? 

Sherlock plunged from the roof of St. Barts and Greg goes home as soon as he gets word. He just stands up and walks out of New New Scotland Yard. Even Sally looks upset, like a child who tapped on the aquarium glass until their fish floated upside-down and now can’t comprehend why it isn’t moving anymore.  
He doesn’t turn on the lights. It’s his bachelor pad but he’d lived here long enough to navigate it in the dark. Some nights that would make him sad but tonight he’s preoccupied. He goes to the drawer he’s never opened and pushes aside the undershirts that don’t fit him anymore. He takes out the mask. He pours himself a drink and looks at it. It looks back at him. He flips it over and takes another drink. Another. He finishes this glass. Before you can’t reach the glass anymore, he thinks. The inside of the mask is so familiar to him. He remembers what it was like to wear it, to feel his eyelashes beat against the plastic, close to his face as a lover. The steam his own sweat made in the mask and how it felt less stifling than a lifetime under a dictator. He sets his glass down and grabs the mask. He straps it to his face, his chest heaving. The lips mold to his, a plastic kiss.  
He expects a call from the chief inspector any moment now and he doesn’t care. He should have started over years ago. He’s only mad it took someone else to force his hand, the rebellion in his veins turned down to a soft simmer.  
The self-pity fades. He spares a thought for Sherlock, who was forced off a roof because people forgot how to be amazed by something.  
He sits in the dark, the V mask tight to his face. There was a reason he was quick to shed his name but kept the mask. The mask is his face. “Greg” is a disguise. 

Molly looks ready to cry when he pops by with the news he won’t be coming round so much anymore, he doesn’t have the heart to tell her he doesn’t care. He’s only been briefly suspended and demoted. Someone spoke on his behalf. He almost wishes that he had been sacked, not that he knows what he’d do. He’ll figure it out and then he’ll quit. Meanwhile, he’ll take the paychecks and the extra spare time he has now. Now that he has time to ask Molly to coffee.  
He’s about to ask her when John comes in. There’s a bit of a stand-off. He knows John wants to blame him. He wants to tell John that he believed in Sherlock. That he still does.  
John has already moved away, handing a filing box to Molly.  
“I found this in the flat. I think it belongs to the lab.”  
“This is a bit embarrassing, I didn’t even know these were missing,” Molly says. She quickly adds “we usually keep such good records.” She blushed a little and flips through the files in the box. Greg can’t help peeking over her shoulder. The files are old, handwritten. “These are odd,” Molly says, pulling out another. “Larkhill. Never heard of the place.”  
God, she’s so young, Greg thinks. Too young to remember the pages and pages of newsprint dedicated to the horror of Larkhill. Too young to go on dates with grey-haired men like him. He’s about to leave when he catches John’s eye. John is watching him carefully. Their eyes meet and John looks away.  
He knows John thinks he’s a terrible detective and he is, but he’s not THAT bad. He’s just a bit slow. He sees it all laid out in front of him, the way Finch saw the liberation of London all those years ago. He sees Sherlock’s flower boxes full of roses, he sees the experiments.  
He sees another man who set fire to his prison and then to London. A man who walked through fire to destroy the heads of state. Another man with a long relationship with a syringe. Compared to him, a tumble off a roof isn’t quite so daunting but god knows Greg couldn’t have done it. Maybe if he had an adrenaline boost.  
He goes home and does what he’s done for years. He will sit and wait for something real to change. This time he’ll go without the mask, he’ll try his own skin on for once. He’s not sure if it fits.


End file.
